Behind Closed Doors
by Alice Rider
Summary: Really Brynnso/Secret Garden/Romeo and Juliet. Brynn is a rich girl living in a mansion with her father. Hanso lives as a thief in Brightvale. My first fanfic. Feel free to comment!
1. Chapter 1

So sorry that this chapter is so short. It'll get longer after this, I promise.

Ch. 1

"Papa, where did Momma go?"

"She went far, far away from here."

"Papa, is Momma still sick like she was before?"

"Not anymore. Not anymore."

"Papa, why can't I go outside?"

"Because the outside world is a dangerous place, Brynneth."

Brynneth never saw her father anymore. After her mother disappeared, he locked himself away in one of the many rooms of their mansion. It was the servants who dressed her every day and brought her meals and entertained her. The poor little girl was never even allowed to leave her room anymore.

"Zelda, can I go see Papa today? You did say that he came back from his journey to Tyrannia, didn't you?"

The old gelert smiled at the little kougra girl as she buttoned up her dress. How the maid wished she could tell the little girl the truth about her father, and how she had prayed to the faeries that she wouldn't have to lie to those kitten eyes that Brynn always shone on her.

"Not today sweet heart. Your father is busy in his study with some chaps from Merridell. Business things and all that." The gelert didn't dare look up into those sweet pleading blue eyes for fear that she would tell the painful truth.

"What about tomorrow?" The tiny kougra slipped on her shoes, smiling at her maid as she did so. The hopefulness in her eyes was enough to send the nurse maid to tears.

"Your hair is a frightful mess, Miss Brynn. I don't know how you manage to make it stand up like that by just sleeping." The maid patted the stool of the white vanity, brush in hand. "Come here and let me brush it."

Brynn skipped and hopped to the seat, bouncing in her chair as Zelda tamed the wild locks of red hair and tied them together with bows.

"Can I at least go outside and play in the gardens for a while?"

"I'm afraid not dearie. They said it's supposed to storm today. Thunder and lightning and rain are no conditions for a little girl like you to be running around in."

"Oh, ok. I'll just stay inside and play with my dolls today." Brynn's smile dropped ever so slightly; Zelda turned to race towards the door. "Where are you going?"

"I heard them calling me downstairs. I'll be back in a minute, ok?"

Brynn stood there, staring at the wooden carvings on her door, for a long while after her maid slammed the door and ran down the hallway to an unheard beckoning. Her small paws formed tiny fists around the skirt of her dress.

"Ok," she whispered to no one.


	2. Chapter 2

Please be patient with my updates. My writer's block only goes away for a few hours. I'll update as quickly as I can. Promise.

Ch. 2

The moon was bright and the stars twinkled delicately over Neopia, and to the half pint of a blue ixi that was roaming the lamp-lit cobblestone streets of Brightvale, it seemed almost like a good omen.

At dusk, all of the shop keepers had closed shop and gone home, and it was well into the night now. There would be no one wandering down the roads to catch him in any act that they couldn't prove he did.

His belly grumbled angrily in the solitary night. He poked it, sighing a bit. Hanso had woken up too late this afternoon and had missed the chaotic commotion of the market that covered up his petty thefts, and had not been able to snatch a single morsel as a result. He'd have to sneak into someone's house and raid their kitchen if he wanted to last another night.

"Alright Mister Belly. Food's coming."

"Talk about a faerie tale," the ixi boy whispered, his breath forming little clouds of puff in front of him.

He was amid some branches, hanging precariously from a steady hold in a neatly trimmed tree in someone's garden. From his perch, Hanso could see acre upon acre of precisely clipped hedges and bushes, all of the buds of flowers that had closed for the night, already coated with dew and shining like small pearls of light in the moon beams, and hundreds of different statues and fountains, all covered in ivy to some extent.

But it wasn't the garden's magnificence that caused such awe to rise in the little thief-in-training. It was the enormous red brick house that was crawling with ivy strands and closed white buds that stood in the middle of it. Hanso almost expected a white carriage to be parked out in front and for a princess in a long, white dress to step out, just like in the faerie tales his mom and dad used to read him before they got separated.

Hanso was almost afraid to go near it and break the illusion, but his gnawing stomach and the clear view of a curtain flying in the breeze from an open window promised too much to be ignored.

It wasn't at all a hard climb. There was a ladder behind the house that the gardeners must have used to keep the ivy on the brick in check. And though it was far too big and heavy for the boy to handle alone, he managed to prop it up against a tree close enough to the open window where all he had to do once he reached the branches was to climb up and jump onto the sill.

The room beyond the sill was quiet and dark. There was a vanity just off to his left and some chests and wardrobes ahead of him. And against the far left wall, was a bed big enough to accommodate five adults. This was no kitchen…

It was someone's bedroom.

And from the soft breathing his ixi ears picked up, Hanso could tell that he was not alone.

Quietly, as a thief should always be, he landed on the plush rug that lay across the stretch of the room closest to the wall, thankful that the thick material had absorbed the shock of his feet landing on the wood paneling.

Hanso watched the bed with wary eyes. He figured that a bed that huge would hold a monstrous Neopet with a thunderous voice that would shake the very foundations of the house, and had huge hands with fingers adorned in gold rings that could grab anything, no matter how fast it ran, and had an appetite for little blue ixi thieves.

So he counted the breaths and would only dare inhale himself between the short exhales of the pet under the covers, slowly tip toeing his way to the ceiling-high doors across the room.

The sheets moved and a sigh broke the stillness of the silence, scaring the nerve-fringed Hanso enough to make him jump back in surprise. The chest rattled as the small blue boy collided with it.

The thief looked up in worry, watching the crystal jars clink against each other. A bottle that had been placed too close to the edge tottered back and forth, finally tipping into the open air. It felt like life had been put into slow motion as Hanso dove to the floor, fingers snaring the bottle mere centimeters away from the hard floor.

He gave a surprised smile of triumph, holding in the laugh of pure amazement—this meant that his reflexes were getting quicker and boy did that ever make him proud. On his tip toes, he slid the jar back onto the chest and resumed his long journey to the door.

Under his foot, a floor board creaked.

"Hmm?" The half-asleep moan emanated from the covers. Hanso quickly dove under the foot of the bed, biting his tongue to keep from whimpering. "Who's there?"

The ixi was taken aback. This was not the monstrous, booming voice he had imagined; it wasn't filled with immediate anger and rage, didn't shake the house and him to their very core. This voice was sweet and small and frail, like a little girl.

The sound of a match being struck was accompanied by the flickering light of a flame. The dim light illuminated the outlines of dolls sitting patiently on the chairs, of bows and hair brushes scattered on the vanity.

A small thud landed on the floor; tiny feet padded down to the foot of the bed.

A little orange kougra held the candle high, cocking her head to the side at the sight of a dirty little boy at the foot of her bed.

"Who are you?" she asked in a small voice. Her tail twitched in the air nervously.

"If I tell you, will you call the adults?" he hedged.

"I don't see any reason to call anybody." She kneeled down to his level, careful of that her oversized nightgown wouldn't trip her as she moved. "Who are you?" she repeated.

"I-I-I'm Hanso," he finally admitted.

"Well, my name's Brynneth. But you can just call me Brynn." She set the candle down and held her hand out with a smile on her face and in her light blue eyes.

Hanso shook her hand, unsure why she would greet a thief as a friend.

"You're hair looks all funny." He wasn't sure why he'd said it, but staring at the frizzy red hair poking in every which direction made him want to laugh.

"Oh it does that whenever I lie down to sleep. What, do you wake up every day looking the same as when you went to bed?" She giggled.

"Um, pretty much," Hanso ran his fingers through his hair self-consciously.

She seemed to be upset about this fact. She crossed her arms in front of her, her face forming something that was supposed to be a scowl, but looked more like a cute little girl pouting. "Well then," she huffed and turned away. Her eyes landed on the open window and widened. "Is that how you got in?"

"Through the window? Yeah. I climbed the trees." He puffed his chest in pride. Her room had to be at least on the fourth floor.

"Cool! Weren't you afraid of falling and breaking a leg or something? My room is so high up." Her momentary anger washed away as she leaned forward like she was looking at some sort of super hero.

"Please, give me some credit Brynneth. I'm an expert at tree climbing."

And now the young kougra was filled with annoyance. Brynneth was the name her father and only her father could call her. Not even the maids tried to play that card. So who was this arrogant little boy that so blatantly went against her wishes?

"Brynn," she repeated bitterly under her breath. "Why are you even here Hanso?"

"Oh, I was hungry and I needed some food. I tried a hundred different houses before I this one, but all of the windows and doors were shut."

"Don't your parents feed you?"

"No. I don't have any parents to look after me. We were separated in this huge fair a while ago. So I'm waiting for them to find me." His hands moved while he talked, trying to motion some sort of sad picture for her; now Brynn was almost regretful that she had asked.

"Well if you're hungry, I can get some food for you." She stood up carefully in her nightgown, taking her candle with her. Back by her bedside, Hanso could see the little girl named Brynn tug on a rope that hung from the ceiling.

"What's that do?" He couldn't see where the rope let up.

"It rings a bell in the servants' quarters. All I have to do is pull this cord whenever I need something." She twitched her ears to listen down the hallway. "Quick! Get under the bed! Someone's coming!"

A thief didn't have to be told twice. There was plenty of room under the bed for an ixi to squeeze and wiggle his way through. Above him, the bed squeaked from Brynn's weight.

"Miss Brynn! What are you doing up so late at night? Are you alright?" came a voice from the door seconds after Hanso had vanished.

"Oh, I'm ok. I just woke up and now I can't go back to sleep. Can you bring me a snack and something to drink? I think it might help."

"Right away Miss." The old door gave a tired squeak and a soft click.

"Miss?" Hanso asked as he crawled out from under the bed. "You're, what, six years old and you have adults calling you Miss?"

"I'm seven, thank you. And they call me Miss because my papa is the lord of the house and he ordered them to."

"Lord of the house? That's quite a title there. Which kinda explains this huge house, the gardens, and the maids. What job does your papa have?"

"You know, I've never really asked. I never see him anymore. But every time I ask one of the maids, he's either out of the house on business or has some bloke from whatever part of Neopia coming over to talk." She held a doll that had been lying at the foot of her bed close while she talked, stroking her yarn hair, only daring to look at the coal black button eyes and never elsewhere. "But he's very rich and I get everything I ever ask for."

"What about your mom? What does she do?" He wanted to climb onto the bed and snatch the doll from her so she would look at him and not the piece of cloth in her hands, but with the looming threat of a maid appearing out of thin air, he decided it was best to stay out of the view of the door for now.

"My momma is gone. I don't know where she went. All I know is that she used to be very sick and none of the doctors could figure out what it was. And then one day, she never came to dinner. I asked Papa where she went and he said that she went far, far away." She twirled the doll in her hands.

"After Momma left, Papa started to leave the house more often on business trips, and when he's home, he's always in his study writing some papers or with visitors from other lands. And sometimes, when he's away, I imagine he went to Mystery Island to go be with Momma and the native people that cured her disease. And I imagine him telling her everything that's happened since he last saw her, and her asking about me. But it's just a silly dream 'cause I don't think Papa knows where Momma is either." She fiddled with the little doll's arms.

"And I think that Papa spends so much time with work so he won't have to think about Momma anymore or try to find her. So he doesn't come to see me much anymore because he's busy with money issues and stuff."

"But you see him around the house, don't you? It's a big house, but it's a small world too." Hanso wasn't exactly sure what the phrase "it's a small world" meant, but the adults liked to use it and they always smiled and laughed and the little girl on the bed looked upset; he didn't want to see her cry because of him.

"Oh, I'm not allowed to wander around the house. They tell me to stay in here because the visitors don't like little children much and Papa might lose business because of me. And there are so many maids running through the halls that I might get in the way."

"So do you get to play outside in the gardens?"

"No. Every time I ask, it's either too muddy, or it's raining, or cold, or there's a thief at large, or something like that."

The ixi chuckled nervously when she mentioned the last excuse, but when she didn't notice, he found another question for her.

"So, you never leave your room?"

She just shook her head.

Hanso was astounded. This girl was rich beyond his wildest dreams, could have anything she ever wanted, but she wasn't allowed to go outside? Wasn't even allowed out of her room? What kind of house was this? Were all the rich pets like her papa?

"Hanso, was it raining today?"

"No…" It was actually really sunny today, not a single cloud in the sky. The rainy season in Brightvale had passed months ago.

Brynn's ears perked up, twitching as she listened for something. "Quick! Hide under the bed again! She's coming back!"

The ixi dove under the wooden frame as the door squeaked open. The soft padding of feet approached them, and a shadow danced across the sheets that obscured the tiny thief from sight. Dishes clinked together as the maid gently laid them on the bed for the little girl.

"Do you need anything else Miss Brynn? Are you sure you're ok?"

"I'm ok, I promise. And thank you."

The maid bowed and walked out of the door, back down the hallway.

"The coast is clear," her voice beckoned.

Hanso crawled out of his hiding spot, a little wary of what awaited on the bed. But all he could do was stare.

In the dim light of the candle, silver gleamed. The ixi climbed onto the bed, studying the way the shiny metal shimmered in the low light. A silver lined tray held a small goblet with curling metal designs and a porcelain plate decorated with rose petals.

"This is a snack?" he asked, unable to believe what was sitting right in front of him.

"Mhmm." The kougra was having more fun watching the ixi's expression change than she ever had with the maids.

He picked up a small baked square covered in white powder. "What's this?"

"That's a blueberry crumpet. They're really good." She pointed to the swirled bread on the far side of the plate. "And that's brioche."

Astounded by the foods he had never heard of before, Hanso dug in greedily, marveling at the sweet flavors that made his taste buds jump and celebrate. And Brynn just sat against her pillows, taking small, ladylike sips from the goblet, smiling. When he finished vacuuming the treats on the plate, she offered him the goblet. She had never seen anyone drink so much so quickly.

"That was amazing." Hanso looked at the empty plate in dismay; he wasn't sure that he could live with stealing food from the vendors that was bland in comparison to the paradise that had just slipped down his throat.

"Yeah," the little girl yawned, her eyes drooping. "The cooks here are really good." Her head nodded as she fought to keep her eyes open. The warm milk the maid had brought her hung a hazy cloud of sleep over her.

"Maybe I should leave. You look tired." Hanso slipped off the side of the bed very quietly, walking back to the window which led him there in the first place.

"Wait!" Brynn's drowsy yell was barely a whisper. The thief froze at the sill. "Will you come back?" To him, it sounded more like, "Won't you come back?"

He smirked at the girl with half-closed eyes sitting in the candle light. "As long as you keep feeding me," he promised.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch.3

"Miss Brynn, won't you please tell me what's wrong?" The gelert maid looked on nervously, fiddling with her fingers.

The little kougra girl just shook her head, her red pony tails whipping around angrily. She popped up on her tip toes to stare out of the window again, her tail swishing back and forth like the pendulum on the clock.

"Miss Brynn, please. I'm starting to worry." The nursemaid peered out of the glass pane, wondering what could possibly be so enthralling about a bleak, grey day that could ever capture a little girl's attention so much that she would ignore her dinner.

"Zelda, I'm fine!" Brynn turned around in anger, little fists shaking at her sides. "I'll eat when I want to eat! I'm not hungry now!"

The maid gasped in shock, astounded that her sweet little Brynn would ever snap so harshly to anyone, especially her. Maybe she wasn't all that different from her father; the apple doesn't fall from the tree after all.

Zelda turned slowly towards the door, her steps trembling and an uneven clicking from her heels filled the suddenly empty air.

"Zelda…" The little girl held her hand out, clutching at the air. "I'm sorry."

The maid stopped for a moment and sighed heavily, hand resting on the brass door knob. "I'll be back later to tuck you in Miss Brynn." And left without another word.

Brynn could only watch the door, hoping that Zelda would come back soon.

Hanso had really never actually paid much attention to the shops in the plaza in Brightvale that didn't have food. But he found that walking around like a normal person and not sticking to the shadows was a nice change of pace.

While he walked, he took a good look at Brightvale Castle, thinking that Brynn's house was ten times better. But what did he know? He'd never even been inside the Castle.

He strolled past a wooden stand; just a plain little shop, nothing very special about it, run by an old zafara with a kindly smile. A cybunny handed some coins to the shopkeeper and handed her little daughter a doll. The little girl hugged the doll close and thanked her mother.

_Brynn likes dolls_, he thought.

He had grown rather accustomed to acting on a whim, so as he drifted to the stand, he thought about all of the dolls Brynn had that lined the walls of her room.

He was barely big enough to see over the counter on his tip toes, but the zafara smiled at him.

"Now, it's not very often I see a little boy here," she joked.

"My friend likes dolls," he defended weakly. "She has a whole bunch at her house." But all the dolls she had were fancy, dressed in lace and satin, with brushable hair and eyes that closed and opened; these were little rag dolls made by hand with button eyes and yarn for hair. Would she even like them?

"Does she now? And what's your friend's name?"

"Brynn," he answered, wondering vaguely what his only friend was doing now. Would she still be awake at this time of day, when the sun was setting over the horizon and the evening sky was giving away to the endless black expanse of night?

"She sounds like a nice little girl."

"You could never even guess." There was a doll in the middle of a pile, her button eyes seeming like they were actually staring at Hanso, and the small stitched smile was almost pleading to him to take her to a home with a nice little girl that would play with her. Dressed as a princess from the days of faerie tales and happy endings, it seemed like a perfect match for the girl who lived locked in a tower. If only he had the coin for it.

"Is this the one you like?" The old zafara handled the doll with care, holding it towards Hanso in the gentlest of ways, as if the doll were made of gold, not rags. "She's a very special doll, you know. She was made with the most love."

Brynn would have loved it, that voice in the back of his head was just screaming at him. "But…I don't have any coins…" He couldn't steal it, the old woman was too kind, and by the looks of it, not much better off than any old peddler on the street. Hanso was a thief, but cruel was just not in his jurisdiction.

The old woman leaned in close, a smile wrinkling up her face and narrowing her kind eyes. "I'll tell you what, why don't you take her? She's been sitting on this shelf for far too long."

"Really? You're just giving it away?" He held his hand out to the cloth, only touching for fear it would be snatched away.

"It's sad to see her sit here every day with no little girl to love her. Everyone deserves a family, don't you think?" She set the doll in Hanso's hand, waving him away with a playful look in her old coal eyes. "Now go and make a little girl happy."

"Thank you miss!" Hanso never ran faster in his life.

_Tap. Tap tap._

Brynn shook off the mild stupor that had fallen on her, sliding slowly out of bed to unlock the window. A thick layer of rumbling clouds had blocked out the light of the moon, but she already knew who would be there waiting.

"Hey Hanso." She didn't wait for the blue ixi to make some sort of spectacular entrance, she wasn't in much of a mood to be entertained; she lit a candle on her table and crawled back toward her bed before the boy had even gained all of his balance on the window pane.

"Aw, Brynny, you shouldn't have," he snickered at the new name he'd invented a few nights before, knowing how much it got on her nerves. "Such a meal waiting for me, I'm touched."

"You can have whatever you want." Under her sea of covers, she curled into a ball, trying to block out the rest of the world.

If the boy noticed her mood, he didn't say anything. The clatter of plates filled the empty room, not very quiet for the thief he bragged about being. Brynn knew thieves from her story books the maids read her; they were silent, deadly, and never chivalrous. Hanso was the farthest thing from them. Brynn closed her eyes tightly, trying to remember those old stories Zelda had read. But her maid's voice seemed to accompany every one of them and the lump in Brynn's throat grew.

"Hey, did you even eat any of this?" His words were mushed, whether from hearing them through her comforter or from the food stuffed in his cheeks, she couldn't tell; probably a combination of both.

The girl tried to swallow the painful pit stuck between her vocal cords and her mouth. "No."

"Why not?"

If he was expecting an answer, he wasn't getting one; Brynn curled into a ball under the covers, wrapping her tail around her in a knot. A tiny hand clutched at the comforter, ripping away the warmth, revealing a sniffling an orange lump of fur and cloth.

"What's wrong?"

"I-I- I yelled at Zelda today. I didn't mean t-to. A-and now, s-she…" She couldn't hold back the tears anymore; she'd been stuffing them down all day, trying to deny the fact that her favorite maid and the closest thing she had to a mother within the last few months was mad and wouldn't come back. But now, in the late hours of the night, tucked in her bed haphazardly by one of the many maids in the house whose name didn't begin with a Z, the guilt was starting to eat her alive. "She hasn't come back!" she sobbed.

Hanso reached out to help the girl, hand freezing right before it touched her. He was scared; he'd never seen anyone cry, especially not a little girl, especially not a little girl who had happened to save his life. What could he possibly say to her?

His hand robotically retreated, clutching the buttons on his jacket like some sort of life vest; and he'd drown in her tears soon if he didn't find a way to cheer her up. A slight bulge in his pocket seemed to nudge him as a reminder of something very important he was supposed to be doing.

_"Now go and make a little girl happy."_

Brynn hadn't been sure when he'd moved, she'd only known that he was standing there at the edge of her bed with a worried/uncertain kind of look. And now there were two button eyes staring her in the face.

"W-what's this?" Brynn wiped at her eyes, sliding up on one arm; so it was a doll he'd been holding. He wouldn't look at her though, something on her wall seemed to capture his complete attention, even managed to make his cheeks burn a brilliant red.

"Just take it," he muttered.

Brynn held the delicate doll in her claw gently, studying the pink dress she'd been dressed in, her long brown yarn hair, the tiny crown that had been stitched to her head, the big black buttons that seemed to be screaming "Hello!"

Brynn sniffled once more, the tears slowing down on her cheeks. "What's this for?"

Whatever was on the wall still appeared to be much more interesting than her because his eyes wouldn't look away. "It's…a thank you. For everything you've done this last week."

Brynn decided that this doll was much more valuable than all of the porcelain ones that lined her walls in wait for play time. "T-thank you."

"What's going on here?"

The two kids jumped a little, eyes snapping wide open, flashing towards the door where a gelert in a night dress stood in the doorway with a candle held high.

"Zelda!" It took a second for Brynn to realize that right now was not the best time for a heart-felt apology and hugs. There was still a thief paralyzed in her room after all.

"Who is this?" The gelert was still far too shocked to actually do something about the vermin that had infiltrated the room, and she was only able to fling questions their way.

Hanso stared a little while longer, an ixi caught in the headlights expression in his eyes; but he wasn't stupid enough to stay like that long; he jumped onto the foot of Brynn's bed, hopped to the window sill, and dropped out of sight.

They both watched the window for a long time after, still somehow expecting the little blue face to pop up.

"You've a lot of explaining to do Miss Brynn."

**Thank you so much for tolerating my stupid non-uploadness! I promise I'll try to upload more often ;~;**


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